1. Field of Invention
This invention is directed to systems and methods for crew interaction and coordination in task-loaded environments using portable electronic data storage and display devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Portable electronic data storage and display devices, such as, for example, electronic notebooks and like handheld devices, present a tremendous capacity to provide a user with readily available information that was previously found only in large, cumbersome technical or reference libraries of printed publications. Use of these portable electronic data storage and display devices in many highly task-loaded environments is becoming commonplace. The capabilities of such devices are limited only by their internal data storage capacities and specific functionality for manipulating pages of data resident in the device. Many of these portable electronic data storage and display devices in common use today are oriented to specific sets of tasks or specific usable purposes. One such example is the Electronic Flight Bag, or “EFB,” which is gaining wide acceptance with individual cockpit flight crew members, particularly in large commercial airline, military transport and general aviation aircraft with multi-place cockpits.
In specifically task-oriented operations, these devices, in addition to their capacity for storage and display of tremendous technical or reference libraries of information, provide a platform to enable other tasks to be automated. In EFBs, for example, checklists are made interactive and other data form fill type needs such as performing weight and balance and/or performance calculations as will be referred to in greater detail below, may be provided.
Conventionally, each member of a commercial airline, military transport or general aviation aircraft cockpit flight crew carries with them, into the cockpit of the aircraft, a large “flight bag,” which is a catalog case full of normal procedural and emergency procedures checklists, aircraft operating manuals including tables of operating limitations, domestic and international navigational charts (as appropriate), and/or other pertinent or required inflight information publications and the like. Often, the individual cockpit flight crew member's routine includes pre-arranging selected portions of this extensive library of all required printed materials in an anticipated order of need. As such, specific references required for pre-flight, start, taxi, takeoff, departure, inflight/enroute navigation, arrival, approach, landing, taxi, shutdown and postflight are readily available substantially in the order in which it is anticipated that they will be required.
Special and/or emergency procedures checklists and publications are often segregated and kept in a separate portion of each individual cockpit flight crew member's flight bag. Those publications to which quick access may be required during critical phases of flight are often segregated in this manner in order to minimize the time necessary for the individual cockpit flight crew member to access the required information, thereby coincidentally minimizing the amount of time which the individual cockpit flight crew member's attention is diverted from concentrating principally on controlling the aircraft.
Additionally, there are many repetitive tasks which often require the recall, review and verification of individually mandated checklists in order to ensure and record completion. Also, individual cockpit flight crew members must routinely fill out and/or accept a number of standard forms for each flight. Each of these repetitive or routine tasks requires significant interaction between individual cockpit flight crew members in order to ensure task completion.
Further, based on mandated requirements for control of an aircraft, there are times, during certain critical phases of flight, when an individual flight crew member is unable to remove, and, in fact, is proscribed from removing, his or her hands from the controls of the aircraft. Thus, for example, it is at times impossible or at least very difficult for the cockpit flight crew member to access separately required publications from the reference library of materials carried onboard the aircraft. In such instances, a typical flight crew coordination scenario involves a pilot in control of the aircraft at the specific time requesting of another cockpit flight crew member the specific publication required for that phase of flight. The cockpit flight crew member to whom the request is directed then selects the appropriate publication from any available library of references (his or her own, that of the pilot in control, or that of another cockpit flight crew member), opens the selected publication to the correct page (or folds the chart to display the currently required information) and then manually places the publication within the view of the pilot in control of the aircraft for his or her review and use.
Against this conventional set of circumstances, the use of microprocessor based portable electronic data storage and display devices, such as, for example, EFBs, is becoming more and more popular in commercial airline, large transport, and general aviation. The introduction of EFBs into the cockpits of commercial airline, multi-place military transport and other aircraft provides an automated and interactive library of publications in electronic format to replace the conventional flight bag full of checklists, charts, publications and the like. As with the previous printed library of publications, each individual cockpit flight crew member carries all of the required reference materials with regard to the operation and navigation of the aircraft; however, now these materials are contained in an electronic notepad or like portable electronic data storage and display device.
There are, however, certain procedural modifications which the introduction of these devices mandate, or separately facilitate. It should be understood that, in a multi-crew member cockpit, individual cockpit flight crew members' EFBs are commonly mounted on the outboard sides of each principal flight crew member's aircraft control station, e.g., on the windshield rail or console to the left of the left or pilot's station, and in a like location to the right of the right or co-pilot's station. This placement, it should be recognized, places an individual cockpit flight crew member's EFB out of reach and/or view of the other cockpit flight crew member.